Poll: Is Hunter Mill Road Right Place for Septic Station?

Fairfax County is considering relocating one of its two county septage receiving sites from Colvin Run in Great Falls to the Lake Fairfax Park Maintenance Area 6 on Hunter Mill Road in Reston/Vienna.

There are 21,000 homes in this area of the county, mostly in Great Falls and Oakton, whose septic tanks must be emptied into a sewer line once every five years (or about 6,000 visits to the current site annually). The current location also receives regular deliveries of restaurant grease.

Officials said the current site floods, smells and has a pipe that is too small to receive the sewage. After looking at six area locations, they determined the Lake Fairfax one is the most appropriate place to built a new, secure, odor-controlled facility. That land is on park land, but not in an area of the park accessible to visitors.

However, Hunter Mill-area residents said at a recent meeting that Hunter Mill is the exact wrong place to build the sewage dump. Among the issues: Two-lane Hunter Mill Road, and its one-lane bridge, cannot handle the increased traffic; the Lake Fairfax site is close to trails and streams; and the sewage should stay closer to its customers in Great Falls.

A report prepared by an environmental consulting firm said, among other things, it would cost more than $700,000 less to renovate the Colvin Run site rather than build a new plant at a cost of $3.4 million.

I think the question is not stay or go but rather how and when. That said it will be like the race to the moon with the usual small crowd of detractors and deniers. Fast backward to 2013,

“,,, an Albany sewage plant will be one of the first in the nation to burn excrement to generate power.

“It virtually is power from the people,” said Rich Lyons, executive director of the North Wastewater Treatment Plant in Menands, just outside Albany. “Sewage sludge is a renewable energy. It’s always available.”

Big Blue Biscuit

I assume the poll has a typo and “anywhere else BY the spot” should be “anywhere else BUT the spot”.

Karen Goff

Yes. thanks. Fixing now.

Big Blue Biscuit

but you’ve fixed it by deleting all of the votes to refurbish the existing site 😉

Karen Goff

I know, I know. Was not able to substitute it out. So vote again! 🙂

Big Blue Biscuit

😉

Mookie Taylor

It depends on what “other things” the consulting firm said and where the geographic center of the facility’s users lies.

Chuck Morningwood

I vote that they put it in Winterthur. That would be an improvement.

billecart90

I see the story, but I don’t see the poll. Is it too late to participate?